7 Quick Takes Friday #17

Back home! Back home! I've been home all week! What pleasure! And now it is time for this week's contribution to the Quick Takes meme hosted by Jennifer Futwiler at Conversion Diary.

1. Saturday morning I started out in Alaska. What a beautiful place! The view from my hotel window was spectacular, but even more spectacular were the views along the mountain roads between downtown Anchorage and the location of our branch office in a relatively rural area. (Sorry to disappoint any Alaskans reading this blog, but the mountains do not compare in any way to the Alps, where I have had many opportunities to hike and walk with friends!)

2. The trip back was far from without incident, and definitely tested my Lenten pledge to give up frustration. My backpack was taken from me in Seattle by the Alaskan Air gate area. It is a complex story, so I will write about it in a subsequent post. Essentially, I made it home just fine. My poor backpack was another story, as was my need to balance computer and breakable good on the airplanes without a backpack. Yi, ai!

3. On Sunday, we held a memorial for Ray. It was good to see Noelle get out of her apartment and gather together with friends to say goodbye to Ray. She has been quite depressed since his death in mid-January and has pretty much kept to herself, not even always wanting to see her parents, let alone her friends. Seeing her smile and laugh together with Ray's friends at the memorial was heartwarming -- and a relief. It was also heartwarming to see who came: representatives of most local ethnic groups (African-American, Native American, Hispanic, and Caucasian). That was Ray. He had a way of bringing together people of different ethnicities.

4. Our prayer group meeting on Monday was also heartwarming. We usually pray at the beginning and at the end. During the meeting, we sing, share experiences, ask for prayers, update each other, do some lectio divina, read scripture, do some spiritual exercises, and the like. The content varies week by week and mood by mood. Interestingly, on Monday night, the mood was very unusual. We spent nearly the whole evening in prayer, and no one wanted to stop. In fact, bringing the meeting to closure, which meant stopping the prayers, was almost painful. We all commented on it because it was not typical.

5. Yesterday I conducted new manager training. It is one of the most enjoyable things I do. New managers are so fresh. They are often new to management. They are certainly new to their positions and often to our organization. We have a wonderfully loving, supportive, and work-dedicated ambiance at work that I don't want to have corrupted by the introduction of managerial approaches that are autocratic or otherwise in direct opposition to our organizational ethos. So, when we start to gather a preponderance of new managers, I talk to them about the principles of servant leadership, which is the leadership philosophy that guides me. The new managers had interesting questions about applications to their current problems. Now those discussions are the meat and potatoes of my existence!

6. And then came this morning. I wrote the following on my face book page: "I don't want to go to work today. Will someone give me permission to stay home and hide out under the bed? I have to fire a friend, currently working as a junior manager, for poor performance. (I did not hire her; my boss forced her on me against my better judgment. Now, he has some embarrassment, too.) Ugh!" Unfortunately, this relatively new junior manager, in three months of training, was unable to learn even the basics of management. I had a team of six people mentoring her on various aspects of her job. All of them came to the conclusion in recent days that not only is she untrainable but also her pride and lack of self-awareness preclude anyone's ability to train her. So, the decision was made to fire now. The firing did not take the normal path, however, and since the story is not quite finished, I will wait and relate details when it is. I will comment, however, that it seems that my prayers for guidance and help in this matter have been answered.

7. Giving up frustration for Lent has been an extraordinary experience in a very short period of time. Once I made that decision, it seems that very trying circumstances come up more frequently now, such as the backpack problem on Saturday and the need to oversee the firing of a friend on Friday. What has been extraordinary has been the constant answer to prayer to hold my frustration at bay. I have also asked people at work to point out when I am getting frustrated; that gives me time to retire to my office and say a prayer before it becomes a full-fledged, unmanageable emotion. I think I made the right decision this year on what to give up. I am at peace (so far) under even trying circumstances. Thank You, God!

Wishing you a great weekend, much peace, and no frustration!